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Saturday, April 25, 2015

What A Girl Needs From Her Mom By Cheri Fuller

As a mother of two daughters, one who is currently in her difficult teenage years, when I saw this book I knew it was something I wanted to read. Honestly, this book should be required reading for anyone who has daughters – they should put a copy of it in your gift bag at the hospital upon birth of said daughter (there’s a second book for mother’s of boys as well).

The Reasons I Have to Dye My Hair

Ashleigh

Alyssa

Let’s face it – when you bring home that little bundle of sweetness wrapped up in a pink blanket, you think it’s going to be easy. Boys are the hard ones – those rambunctious tornados who can’t sit still for a moment. The truth is, girls can be just as difficult as boys are but on a totally different level. Boys are difficult because of their curiosity and adventurism; girls are difficult because of their need for social interaction and because of their emotions.

Cheri Fuller does a great job of providing insight into the mother/daughter relationship as well as walking the reader step by step through the many perils of raising a daughter. She also pinpoints the many ways we as mother's fail our daughters. As she does so, she weaves in humor and stories of her own mistakes and situations in raising her own daughter as well as those of other families. She points out how things are much different now then when many of us were young girls and what mothers really need to be aware of in this jungle of the technological age.

The book is divided up into 14 points of interest as to what we need to be for our daughters. Each of these points are covered in entirety in its own chapter, which makes a great place to go if you bought this book to pinpoint one particular are to work on.. Some of the topics that are covered are : Being a mom who is present and engaged, being a mom who encourages and builds confidence, being a mom who prays for her daughter, being a mom who is a good role model, being a mom who helps develops a daughter of character, and being a mom who listens with her heart.

The book is far from being a dry textbook and really connects with the readers heart. Each chapter concludes with questions for journaling to dig deeper into your thoughts and to provide a moment of self reflection in your own mother/daughter relationship.

Me with both of my beautiful daughters

Over all, I found this to be a great book for any mother to read, regardless to the age of her daughter. My oldest daughter and I have a pretty good relationship, however I found much information here that I can bring into our relationship to make it not a “pretty good” but a strong connection that will endure the years. It will also help me to avoid many of the same mistakes that I made in my relationship with my oldest daughter when it comes to my youngest daughter.

Read it early on when your daughters are young to avoid much of the emotional conflict that comes when they get old. Read it when your daughters are older in order to lesson that conflict and rebuild the mother/daughter relationship that has might have been damaged.
I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5.